


The last of the real ones

by metalkiralylany



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fake Science, Getting Together, Identity Issues, M/M, kind of unsafe sex at first, the main characters are all human
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-21 17:08:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12462180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/metalkiralylany/pseuds/metalkiralylany
Summary: The reality of the situation was this: being human and living on the surface was dangerous on its own, navigating around the center of 59.93863 30.31413 was what most people would’ve considered the perfect recipe for suicide – not that Yuri knew manypeople. In fact, he wasn’t sure how long it’d been since he’d met someonereal.Or:In a society ruled by transhuman AI beings called the Synthetics, Yuri is on a mission to destroy the system while Otabek is just simply lost.





	The last of the real ones

**Author's Note:**

> Well, this is what happens when someone takes [song lyrics](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YAAyUFL1GQ) as literal inspiration.  
> Warnings for minor violence and blood (as plot device??), as well as messy descriptions of sex. I can't believe I uploaded this at 5 AM.

Yuri fought the urge to squint against the faint sunlight seeping through the smog of the noisy city. Even though the street he was about to cross was mostly empty, he could never be careful enough, who knows who could be watching? He couldn’t allow himself to make any mistakes after last week. It’s been a true miracle that he hadn’t been caught and even he knew better than to keep pushing his luck.

The reality of the situation was this: being human and living on the surface was dangerous on its own, navigating around the center of 59.93863 30.31413 was what most people would’ve considered the perfect recipe for suicide – not that Yuri knew many  _ people _ . In fact, he wasn’t sure how long it’d been since he’d met someone  _ real. _

The mission was going excruciatingly slow; on most days he couldn’t even be sure if he had made any progress. He probably hadn’t but if he started caring about that he’d probably be dead in a couple of days. He’d known what he was getting into – at least that’s what he’s been telling himself. Still, sometimes, on particularly bad days when he had to get by on nothing but emergency rations that’d been expired for at least 20 years, the dry, powdery bits tasting like ash on his tongue and sending him into silent coughing fits, he figured he was allowed a few moments of weakness. In those moments he regretted coming here. This place was Hell itself. Real food was impossible to come by, he’d been living in a closed down factory building, stealing clothes from malfunctioning  _ synthetics _ that occasionally wandered into the old industrial part of the city. He’d since long ran out of the supplies he’d brought with him from  _ home;  _ he’d never expected to make it for more than a couple of months, not even in his most daring dreams.

 

It’s been three and a half years since the last time he had any contact with his friends.

 

That was exactly the reason why he refused to accept failure – he’d made it this far…

 

As he turned the corner to join the sea of walking figures on a busier street, his attention snapped back to the present. He couldn’t afford to be distracted. He had to constantly be aware of his surroundings while maintaining absolute control over every single muscle in his body in order to avoid being recognized as faulty, or worse,  _ human.  _ The synthetics had no sense of smell and a human’s normal body temperature was close enough to artificial systems’ that they’d have to rely on visual clues, like the way they moved to tell them apart. Yuri had trained himself with the help of Lee to imitate the way a synthetic would walk, talk or do any task; the key was avoiding excessive movements, calculating the right angle, the appropriate force, never more than what was strictly necessary. Because of this, synthetics appeared to be less fluid in motion, even if their bodies looked otherwise human for some twisted reason.

The most difficult task was staying in control of his facial muscles and eye movements. Keeping himself from scowling all the time was real torture and the latter would’ve been impossible if it wasn’t for the special contacts Chulanont had gotten for him from who knows where. Yuri had never bothered to ask. 

Lee was a natural, he wasn't. They'd spent countless hours on drills which often ended with Yuri storming off fuming and swearing and the other boy standing there impassively until he came back – and he always did.

 

He almost slipped up when something caught his eye in the corner of his vision. It was only a split second but his sight trained for details picked up on something in the crowd. He wasn’t sure what it was but this wasn’t the place or time for looking around, he would’ve only betrayed himself. Still, something in him wouldn’t let it go, couldn’t dismiss it as an illusion.

Something wasn’t right.

Yuri had no choice but to keep walking though, he could only strain his attention even more and hope for another clue but the next two hours went by uneventful. He was on his way back when he saw it again – this time he was sure of what happened, even if it seemed impossible.

A flash of black. A twitch of a mouth. A moment of spontaneous eye contact.

 

_ He wasn’t alone. _

 

***

 

Yuri knew he shouldn’t take any risks based on nothing but a hunch, but he already knew he’d lost his inner war for control before he consciously decided to take a right turn instead of walking forward on his usual route. He had to make the change of paths seem natural – or rather unnatural, depending on the perspective.

He kept his eyes straight ahead as he marched down the alley after the figure about twenty feet ahead. There was nothing inherently strange about deviating from one’s daily routine, he knew that synthetics were also capable of making spontaneous decisions when the circumstances required but still, there was always a risk of gaining unwanted attention, and on most days he wouldn’t have taken any chances. He might’ve had when he was younger and new to the cruel world of the city, full of boiling rage and a need to do something,  _ anything  _ to throw over the system but he wasn’t that person anymore, he couldn’t afford to be, not here. He hadn’t given up on destroying the synthetics but a change of tactics was necessary to keep himself from dying before he even achieved anything that mattered. 

The distance between them remained constant for the next few minutes. Yuri tried to walk faster without drastically changing his pace but there was only so much he could do; his long legs usually worked in his favor but keeping control was harder when he was in a hurry. Far ahead of him the figure turned a corner and Yuri cursed internally. The way they were heading the structure of the city got more complicated, it was the oldest part of the town that the synthetics preserved in its original state for some reason, probably in a way to mock humanity, but they rarely came here because these streets were built before their time, by  _ people _ who disregarded everything the synthetics valued in architecture, the small alleys there took unexpected turns as they ran into each other, and buildings were built in different shapes, styles and sizes, making the cityscape eclectic; it was unsettling for beings that valued order and functional simplicity.

There was no apparent reason for Yuri to suddenly start running so he couldn't do anything but be patient until he finally reached the same crossing. He barely spotted the dark head of the figure before it disappeared from his sight again. He kept marching with frustration building under his skin because rationally he knew this was hopeless. He took an unnecessary risk and he failed to turn it into something useful. If that wasn't the story of his life lately…

He walked straight for minutes, looking around at intersections as inconspicuously as he could, searching for any sign of the stranger, but the streets were empty, apart from the faint noise of the never-stopping city that was mostly kept out by the tall dusty buildings, the only sound he heard was his own footsteps echoing between the walls. 

  
  


***

  
  


It’s been four days and Yuri was ready to forget about the whole thing. Maybe it didn’t even happen, maybe it was nothing more than his mind playing cruel tricks on him again. It wouldn’t have been the first time, living on his own for as long as he had could do that to a person. 

He woke up hungry on a… what was it? Thursday? Not that it really mattered. What mattered that he was out of food and even that absolutely shitty instant coffee that he probably shouldn’t have been drinking anyway, and probably wouldn’t have if he hadn’t needed to rely on copious amounts of caffeine to keep his focus. Keeping his concentration at all times was an inhuman feat, he couldn’t even remember the last time he dared to allow himself to sleep through the night. He usually set an alarm to monitor his brain activity and wake him up whenever he was too deep into a dream and was at risk of exposing himself. Synthetics didn’t sleep, at least not like humans did. They had frequent resting periods to let their systems run necessary maintenance tasks but those of course didn’t involve any tossing and turning or mumbling nonsense occasionally. Sometimes when he felt like he reached his limits, Yuri took a vial from the medical supplies he still had left from home that allowed him to sleep like the dead, but that meant leaving himself completely vulnerable to anyone who would’ve managed to find his hiding place until the effects would wear off.

He rubbed his eyes which made him see stars that wouldn’t fade away even as he stumbled to his feet. He had no choice but to go back to the old town to try and dig up some supplies from the abandoned buildings, which was another thing he wasn’t looking forward to. These trips always relied on the observation that the synthetics usually saw no reason to wander around in the museal part of the city or even believe that anyone would go there on their own free will, which so far allowed him to go unnoticed every single time. Still, he wouldn’t have bet his life on it. 

He left as soon as he could, the faster he got that trip over with the better, especially because it would’ve been extremely hard to explain the noises his stomach was starting to make if anyone stopped him on the way to examine  _ citizen YP2435’s _ systems that appeared to be malfunctioning. 

 

Fortunately he managed to make it to the edge of the old town without any problems and he was about to slip into the alley running parallel to the busy avenue when it happened. 

It was the same person, he was sure about it ⎼ especially because it would’ve been highly unlikely for him to run into another human so close to the same spot in such a short amount of time. It was still unbelievable that he ran into  _ one  _ in the first place. The last time he saw a real person in the city was about a month after he arrived to the surface, and he only got to watch as the poor bastard got dragged away by the authorities kicking and screaming. Sometimes Yuri wondered what could’ve happened to that guy. Maybe he was kept as a lab rat in a facility somewhere, or maybe he was since long dead. But that was about the only memory he had of an event like that, and it wasn’t something Yuri was keen on remembering, as he, the arrogant, prideful rebel had just stood by and done nothing in order to save his own skin.  _ Never again,  _ he had promised himself that day, but since then there hadn’t been another opportunity to redeem himself ⎼ until now.

It was almost the same as the first time, except this time he was more prepared to act. Luckily the person was headed the way he was planning on going anyway. This time, he kept close to the stranger in front of him and he wasn’t going to let them get out of his sight.

As they both made their way into the heart of the old town the sounds of transport vehicles began to fade away and the streets got darker as the sun hadn’t yet risen above the tallest buildings, providing some cover against prying eyes. Yuri had the entire map of the city seared into his brain so he could figure out where the stranger was going before they even turned the corner. It was the exact same place he meant to go anyway, he figured the other person was also there in hopes of finding some food. 

Yuri had to act fast. Once the stranger reached the storage facility he couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t lose their path so he opted for a shortcut through an archway to get ahead of them. 

He stood right at the end of the gateway, looking out to the street without being seen. He really did memorise the streets down to the tiniest details so if he was right, the person had to come right this way in any minute now. Yuri tried to steel himself, to prepare for  _ anything and everything  _ but he really had no idea what to expect from the encounter. Deep inside he dared to hope that the stranger wasn’t going to be hostile, but he didn’t have the luxury to rely on wishes. Planting his feet hard against the concrete he took up fighting position, ready to throw the first punch if that’s what this would come to. Then he could do nothing but wait.

Thoughts were bouncing around in his brain a thousand miles per minute and he could feel his heart rate pick up dangerously. He took one deep breath with his eyes closed to regain his focus and reduce the distracting mess of his mind to a slight buzz of background noise. Soon enough he could make out the sound of quick steps clattering against the sidewalk.  _ Now or never. _

Once he deemed the distance between the two of them short enough but still safe he stepped out from the shadows with his fists raised. 

 

The stranger, a man probably in his early twenties stopped dead in his tracks, staring at Yuri with eyes wide from shock. They stood there for a couple of seconds unmoving, but just as Yuri opened his mouth to say something the stranger bolted. He froze, momentarily unable to comprehend the situation.  _ What was that idiot doing?  _

He played out a couple of scenarios in his mind but this wasn’t one of them. The other man seemed to understand how to blend in and move around in order to remain unnoticed by the synthetics even if Yuri eventually spotted him, so he must have known that running away like that would most likely get him killed. Okay, Yuri jumping out in front of him like that was probably a bit shocking but this… this was beyond stupid. 

He just stood there, clenching and unclenching his fists in silence as he considered his options. The smart thing, the  _ safe _ thing would have been to let it go. Let the bastard run into his death or wherever the hell he wanted. Yuri’s feet moved before he even finished that thought.

  
  


***

  
  


The guy was in a much better condition than Yuri, that became apparent after the first couple of minutes when he still showed absolutely no signs of fatigue while Yuri’s vision began to blur and he could barely feel his legs moving under him. Someone could’ve stabbed him straight through his chest and he probably wouldn’t have noticed, he struggled for every breath and he was starting to think that this was a huge mistake. Still, giving up was something he refused to do, even if it would’ve been his best chance to come out on top. He’d been told countless times that he was stubborn as hell, as if that was a bad thing. If it hadn’t been for his sheer force of will, he probably would’ve been long dead. 

He focused his attention on the figure running in front of him, his cover was since long blown so there was no point in watching out for synthetic eyes; if someone had reported him he’d hear the sirens of the city police soon enough. Thankfully though the stranger was heading deeper and deeper into the old town, leading Yuri further aways from the more dangerous streets. 

Every breath burnt his lungs and the distance between the two of them seemed to grow further. Yuri gritted his teeth, his nails dug into his palms as he gathered the last drops of his strength for a final sprint.This was him, not the compliant  _ YP2435 _ but  _ Yuri Plisetsky _ in his realest form, running on nothing but his rage, thriving purely out of spite. 

Finally the stranger started to slow down and with one well-calculated dive Yuri managed to tackle him to the ground. The other man was on his feet a second later while Yuri struggled to catch his breath with his vision going in and out of focus, and he had to lean on his knees for support.

They faced each other like this, the stranger keeping a safe distance but apparently having given up on running, his face impassive, save for the slight twitch of his eyebrows while his dark eyes never let go of Yuri’s. There was blood dripping from his chin where he scraped it pretty bad on the pavement as he fell, but he didn’t seem to notice. Yuri’s stare on the other hand was fixated on the scarlet drops falling to the concrete. 

 

The person in front of him was, without a single doubt, human.

 

Under most circumstances, he would’ve been thrilled to meet another person after so long, not even his general dislike for most people would’ve mattered, but this… this went way past his level of tolerance. He was furious. 

 

“What the fuck was that?” he hissed at the guy who kept staring at him in utter confusion. “Hey!” he tried again when the stranger didn’t respond. “Are you new here or just stupid?”

“Excuse me?” The man’s voice was calm but Yuri could tell it was forced. 

He threw his hands in the air in frustration. “What the fuck would you run away for? You could have gotten both of us killed, you know that, right?! Hell, you still could, idiot!”

The man’s jaw tensed visibly but he remained silent. Yuri was beginning to lose the last reserves of his patience and he was about to ask again when the stranger finally spoke.

“Maybe we shouldn’t do this here,” he said simply.

Yuri nodded curtly. “Come with me then!”

  
  


***

  
  


He led the other man through an archway that led to a heavy gate. He pushed it open and led the way up one flight of stairs. It wasn’t a part of the city he’d ever visited before but all these old buildings were similar on the inside. It was quite hard for him to imagine that people used to live in these, that many rooms belonged to a small group or sometimes even just one person. Most of the rooms still had their original furniture, gathering dust mostly, the synthetics found no use for any of it and what wasn’t destroyed during the reconstructions remained untouched. Yuri was also mostly sure that there weren’t any cameras or sensors planted in these living quarters, the synthetics had no reason to believe that anyone would dare to come so deep into the city. He turned around to face the stranger once he walked into a large, mostly empty room.

 

“So?” Yuri snapped at him again. The silence between them stretched on.

“Why did you come after me?” the man asked quietly.

Yuri’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline. “What kind of stupid question is that?” he spluttered. “I’ve seen you around  _ twice  _ now and you obviously noticed me too! I have no goddamn idea what you’re trying to do here but it’s been  _ three fucking years _ since I met another real human being, of course I couldn’t just let you leave.” 

“Another real human,” the man echoed. Yuri just stared at him, baffled.

“Yes?”

The man didn’t respond and Yuri was starting to feel like his intense gaze would soon burn a hole through his body. He shifted his weight from one leg to the other.

“What’s your name?” the stranger asked instead of answering.

The synthetic codename was out of his mouth before he even realized he was answering the question. The man’s face became even more guarded than before, but something flashed in his eyes that almost looked like pain.

“No, wait,” Yuri shook his head, frustrated with himself. “My name is Yuri. Yuri Plisetsky. It’s just been a really long time since I could say that out loud.”

The stranger said nothing. He kept eyeing Yuri like he didn’t believe a single word he’d said in the past five minutes, and that was more infuriating than anything he could’ve said because Yuri was actually being honest here, something he couldn’t usually allow himself to be either.

 

“You don’t believe me,” he said, stepping closer to the man. It wasn’t a question but the flicker in his stare was all the answer Yuri needed. 

“I’ve been watching you,” the stranger said, once again avoiding giving a straight answer. “I didn’t plan on you noticing it until I made sure that… But that doesn’t matter now,” he cut himself off, clenching his jaw. 

Yuri suddenly felt vulnerable. He gritted his teeth and crossed his arms defensively. He hated the thought of being observed without his knowledge and the fact that it had lead to  _ this,  _ to him trying to convince a complete stranger of his own identity. This wasn’t how this was supposed to go. “So what’s  _ your  _ name then?” he asked with challenge in his tone.

“Otabek Altin,” the man said after hesitating for a few seconds, still searching Yuri’s face, which was starting to get really annoying.

Yuri nodded, turning the name around in his mind, deconstructing it to individual syllables before building it up again and attaching it irrevocably to the person standing in front of him. Apparently this wasn’t the response the stranger⎼ _Otabek_ had expected because he sighed; letting his guard down he closed his eyes for a second and his lips twisted into a sad smile before he composed himself again. 

“What?” Yuri demanded.

“It was almost as if… never mind,” Otabek said, shaking his head. 

“You think I’m lying about who I am?” Yuri wasn’t about to let this go, he captured Otabek’s gaze with his own and they just stared at each other with tangible tension bouncing between the two of them.

Otabek’s face was completely blank now, but his eyes still betrayed him. “Yuri Plisetsky knew me,” he said.

 

Yuri recoiled from the words  _ and  _ the fact that Otabek was talking about him in past tense as if they weren’t standing there face to face.

“What?” he asked again stupidly. None of this made any sense, he was sure if he’d seen this man before he’d remember him, he racked his brain for an answer, a memory, but he found nothing.

“I met Yuri first in Yakov’s camp for survivors,” Otabek started talking again in a quiet voice and Yuri fought the urge to interrupt him to say that he was  _ right here _ because this wasn’t where he expected the story to go. “We were both young, he was one of the prodigies while I was deemed unfit,” he said with a bitter smile. 

Yuri gaped at him. How did he not remember? But no matter how hard he tried, there was nothing in his memories about Otabek. He remembered the camp vividly, the morning drills and the rigorous training they had been subjected to before they were old enough to move up to specialized groups or the best, like Yuri, received personal mentors. Of course, it had been more than a decade and his memories of his time spent there were mostly a blur, he didn’t remember most of the people who’d been there except for Yakov and a couple of others. Otabek couldn’t really blame him for that. 

 

“You said you met me there first,” Yuri frowned. “There were other times?”

Otabek nodded. “Just one. I was eighteen, living in another community for a couple of years by then. Yuri was about fifteen, on his first practice mission on the ground,” he said, his eyes unfocused as if he was reliving the memory. Yuri waited impatiently for him to continue, his confusion growing with every passing second. This, he should’ve remembered, but there was still nothing he could grab onto. 

“I ran into him while I was on supply run. He was on foot for some reason, being chased by a couple of wild dogs, I still don’t know where those could’ve possibly came from,” he went on, shaking his head. “I stopped only for a second to pick him up, and I took him all the way back to the basecamp of SPB. We became friends there,” he finished, and his eyes hardened as he looked at Yuri again.

Yuri was still more than confused. He stared at Otabek, trying to come up with an acceptable reason for his faulty memories. He barely even remembered that mission, but the barking of those dogs was something he couldn’t ever forget completely, even if…  _ Oh. _

“I don’t remember that because I was concussed,” he finally said. It was true and it made sense. Not long before Otabek had found him he had hit his head pretty hard when he had lost control of his bike and had driven into a pile of bricks on the side of the road. He had probably lost consciousness for a while because the next thing he heard was the barking getting closer. He hadn’t even bothered with his bike, in a moment of wild panic he just started running. “I had no idea how I got back to base, everyone was asking me where my bike was and what had happened but I couldn’t tell them. I threw up on someone’s shoes,” he snorted. That was a weird detail to remember, especially now that he knew what he’d apparently forgotten. 

 

Otabek studied him for a few minutes. “I wish I could believe you.”

“So why don’t you?” Yuri stepped closer to him again, throwing his hands up in anger. “We don’t have time for this!”

“I can’t, because you look like him but you act like  _ them,  _ even now,” Otabek replied, frustration apparent in his voice.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Yuri scowled at him. He had dropped the façade the moment he had started running after Otabek.

“Look into that mirror,” Otabek said, pointing at something behind Yuri’s back. He was reluctant to turn his back on a person who’d given him no reason to trust him, but if this was what it’d take…

 

He turned where the other man was looking and he winced as he faced his own, pale image in the full-body mirror attached to the wall. For a few seconds, he was confused, but then he finally started to see what Otabek meant. He was unnaturally still, his face blank even when he could swear his expression would have been shocked. He lifted one hand to fix his messy ponytail and the movement seemed robotic, perfectly calculated and completely lifeless. His immediate thought was that Lee would’ve been proud of him, even if he’d never admit it. Then the reality of the situation hit him and he started to panic. What freaked him out even more was that even then his expression remained impassive, none of his inner turmoil reflecting on it, not even in his eyes. The green irises looked soulless. He raised his other hand and touched his face, he prodded and poked the muscles around his eyes and his mouth. This couldn’t be happening. He wasn’t turning into  _ them. _

 

He felt sick from looking at his own ghostly self so he turned back to Otabek who watched him with that deep sadness in his eyes. Yuri wanted to scream.

 

“This isn’t what it seems like,” he said instead, his voice quivering slightly. ( _ Or did it? He couldn’t be sure anymore.)  _ He walked closer to Otabek again, until he was only a single step away. “You hear me? I’m not like them!”

“You looked so⎼” Otabek whispered as he lifted on hand without thinking to rest his palm against Yuri’s cheek. He flinched at the unexpected contact first but it wasn’t unpleasant. He leaned into the touch unconsciously, as it was something he hadn’t even realized he had been missing. “You looked like him.”

 

He had a feeling that Otabek wasn’t telling him everything but this wasn’t the time to figure out what he didn’t say.

 

“I  _ am  _ him!” Yuri insisted.

“I wish that was real,” Otabek said and Yuri just about lost it.

He swatted Otabek’s arm away and he pushed him so hard he stumbled backwards, almost losing his balance. He let out a surprised yelp.

“ _ Real?! _ ” Another push. “You want  _ real _ ? I’ll show you real!” Yuri snarled as he threw in the first punch.

He miscalculated the angle slightly and as his knuckles connected with Otabek’s jaw, he felt something crack and then nothing but throbbing pain between his fingers. 

Otabek backed into a wall from the unexpected force, cradling his face before he assumed fighting position with his glare turning to ice that burned Yuri’s skin. 

“Come on, hit me!” he yelled at the other man, making no attempts to defend himself from the punch that never came. 

“I know better than to use violence against a synthetic,” Otabek replied calmly and Yuri’s blood froze in his veins. _This couldn’t be happening_. Someone who was supposed to be his _friend_ didn’t just call him a _goddamn_ _synthetic…_

Now, he did scream in frustration, he whipped around and with another scream his fist flew into the center of the mirror, shattering it to a million tiny shards, many of which cut deep into his flesh and remained implanted under his torn skin. 

He turned back towards Otabek whose eyes were fixated on the blood pooling slowly on the floor. He stared at Yuri’s bruised hand in utter confusion. He didn’t react fast enough before Yuri was on top of him, pushing him down to the dirty carpet, shaking his shoulders. 

“Is this not real enough for you?” he yelled into the other man’s face, their bewildered stares capturing each other’s as Yuri’s vision suddenly became blurry. Maybe he finally reached the end of his strength, maybe he was about to faint. He no longer cared. 

 

There was something dripping down to Otabek’s face, tiny drops of some clear fluid. Otabek reached up and wiped his thumb against Yuri’s cheek. He squinted at his own hand curiously when it came away wet. Otabek made an attempt to sit up and Yuri made no move to stop him. He sat back on his heals, completely numb and uncaring about what was about to happen. Otabek kneeled in front of him, he lifted his chin and searched his eyes, for what, Yuri didn’t know anymore. And then two strong arms slid around his shoulders as he was pulled into a gentle hug. He couldn’t move. He just sat there, his own arms hanging limp against his sides as Otabek slowly stroked his hair, saying nothing. 

Yuri had no idea how long they stayed like that on the floor before Otabek finally moved, taking Yuri’s bleeding hand into his own to examine the damage. He looked around the room and must have found what he was looking for because after murmuring something Yuri couldn’t make out he left him sitting on the floor and went rummaging through drawers and cabinets, and he came back with a red medical box. 

Yuri knew he should’ve at least flinched when Otabek gently tapped his knuckles with alcohol-soaked gauze but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Otabek didn’t seem to mind though, he kept working on cleaning the wounds and removing the splinters stuck under his skin as Yuri watched his every move silently. Finally he bandaged it up, and only then did he look Yuri in the eye again. His eyes were still sad but this time they looked different. Yuri stood his gaze.

 

“Yuri, I’m sorry,” Otabek said. 

“Do you believe I’m real now?” he asked instead of answering. Otabek didn’t hesitate before nodding.

Yuri contemplated that for a second. “Then you’re forgiven.”

Otabek nodded again as he packed everything back into the box. He was about to stand up to throw out the bloody gauze when Yuri suddenly grabbed his arm. 

“I’m sorry for not remembering you,” he said. “I wish I did.”

“It’s not your fault,” Otabek replied. He paused before he continued. “But you’re also forgiven.”

 

When he came back to the room, Otabek offered a hand to Yuri and he accepted gladly because frankly, he wasn’t sure if he could have managed to stand up on his own. He let himself be led to the other room where the majority of the floorspace was taken up by a huge double bed. Otabek sinked down to the dusty mattress and he pulled Yuri down next to him gently, and he went willingly. They nestled against each other right at the center, with Otabek’s arms cradling Yuri’s back, while he rested his face against the other man’s chest, his fists buried in his battered shirt, holding on tight, listening to his steady heartbeat.

 

He had never heard a more beautiful sound.

  
  


***

 

It’s been almost month, and sometimes he still couldn’t believe that this was actually happening. It’s been the twenty-seventh morning when he woke up to a messy mop of hair tickling his nose while Yuri’s entire weight was draped across his chest. He didn’t mind, not even a bit. Otabek smiled to himself as he began stroking the dirty blond locks while Yuri grumbled in his still half asleep state. He planted a kiss on the top of his head before he somehow managed to wiggle out from under him without waking him up completely. Yuri just mumbled something incomprehensible as he turned on his other side. 

Otabek went to the tiny kitchen to start some much needed coffee and scrape out the last of the rations from the back of the cabinet over the sink. As much as they both liked their temporary home, it was about time to move on. And maybe… maybe it was time for a bigger change. 

Just as the coffee machine came to life there was some shuffling in the bedroom, and a few seconds later Yuri appeared with his eyes barely open, yawning and stretching like a housecat. Otabek chuckled, which Yuri rewarded with a death glare. He took two mugs from the sink and held them out for Otabek to pour fresh hot coffee into. They sipped their drinks in comfortable silence, munching on the much hated dry rations. Their morning routine was almost complete.

 

Once they were both finished, Yuri set the mugs back in the sink and he turned to Otabek and pulled him in for a kiss. They weren’t in any hurry as Yuri wrapped his arms around Otabek’s neck while he held on to Yuri’s waist to guide him slowly through the door, back to the bedroom, down to the bed where he lay with his hair spreading around his head like the gold rays of the sun, his emerald eyes blinking up at him lazily. 

Otabek leaned down for another kiss and he smiled as Yuri bit down on his lower lip, challenging him to step up the game. He grinned down on the other man once he released him before he bent further down to scrape his teeth against the sensitive skin on Yuri’s neck, leaving goosebumps wherever his mouth wandered. 

Yuri was almost purring under him as he took his time with each inch of his body, his calloused fingertips sliding under the plain tshirt, counting his ribs with familiar motions and making his lean muscles clench under the soft touches. He made good use of every second before Yuri flipped them over whenever he felt like it, returning the favor and leaving a trail of wet kisses on Otabek’s neck, then his chest and stomach, until he reached the waistband of his underwear. Then he looked up questioningly and together they decided what they wanted to do for the day. There were no reason to rush.

Not like on the first night, when all their frustration and confusion poured into the desperate touches and sloppy kisses that almost hurt as their teeth clashed and Yuri had gripped him too tight and Otabek forgot about his injured hand for a second until he yelped in pain. They had been a mess of limbs with their bodies crashing against each other as if they had still been fighting, the tension between them building as beads of sweat rolled down their backs, mixing with the dust of the bed and making their skin uncomfortably sticky. But none of that mattered, not when even just their hands touching and their fingers laced together was enough to send their senses into overdrive because it was all  _ real _ , warm skin on skin, the smell of everything, Yuri’s hair in Otabek’s fist, Yuri’s tongue against the tip of his cock, the heat of his mouth as he tried to take it all in, the tight muscles around his fingers, Yuri around him  _ everywhere,  _ the shuddering of his body as he came, the taste of his come, later his fingers teasing Otabek for what felt like hours, and the lesson they both learned about going too fast unprepared in the morning.

 

They’d been a work in progress, gradually learning more and more about each other both in and out of the bedroom ⎼ but mostly  _ in,  _ at least on the first couple of days. By now they knew each other’s preferences, from how they took their coffees to what positions they found the most comfortable. They had rummaged through several bedroom nightstands in several abandoned homes to find enough supplies to last for another couple of weeks; thankfully leaving the old town authentic meant that even the most personal items remained untouched by both the synthetics and in most cases time as well. Thank god for ridiculous expiration dates.

As Otabek looked up at Yuri from where he was lying, his wrists pressed into the mattress on either side of his head by Yuri’s strong hands, he didn’t want to think about the future or the plans they’d been making together during their endless days. They’d figure it out soon enough.

 

Just not tonight.

**Author's Note:**

> TBH I have no idea how any of this happened, feedback is welcomed, and as always, thank you so much for reading!
> 
> and P.S. Those numbers are actual GPS coordinates :)


End file.
